Missing links john reader
Review of Missing Links by John Reader
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Spencer M. Robinson
1999
When the science of paleoanthropology first emerged circa 1856, with the discovery of Neandertal 1, it held considerable promise in unraveling the mystery of human origins. Based on the biological and earth sciences (zoology and geology initially, later incorporating paleontology and paleoecology, as these fields of study developed) and subsuming anthropological theories of human social and cultural evolution, it offered a scientific, systematic approach to an area of research that was often besieged by highly subjective emotionality and political posturing. Although in the intervening one and a half centuries we have made enormous strides in understanding much of the increasingly complex picture of hominid fossil remains, we have, in many ways, failed to live up to that initial promise. This paper directly addresses some of the problems in the current practice of paleoanthropology that are implicated in this failure. There are three primary problems that have prevented paleoanthropology from reaching its full potential. The first problem is a most fundamental one; the lack of basic operational definitions. While the science of paleoanthropology is concerned with unraveling human origins, and mapping out human evolution in time-sequenced phylogenic relationships, after a century and a half we have no solid, fully agreed upon definition of what is human. We do not even have any concurrence on the organization of our own taxonomic family; in the classification of living hominoids, we can’t agree if we are the single binomial in the tribe Hominini, one of two binomials of the tribe Hominini, the single binomial in the subfamily Homininae, or the single binomial in the family Hominidae — for fossil groups it gets dramatically more contentious. It begs the question, how can
Missing Links: In Search of Human Origins
I wanted to read about what the title of the book seemed to promise, so I was irritated by this circumlocution...and I continued to be annoyed as chapter after lengthy chapter followed, which told me not so much about the current state of play regarding ancient human(oid) fossils, but rather the history of their discovery, and the feuding personalities of their finders.
Why then give it 4 stars? Ultimately, because I gradually became gripped by the human drama that the author unfolds. I started by thinking "I don't want to read about Piltdown man! I know that was all faked!" to getting gripped by the circumstances of its fakery, the possible identity of the mystery faker, and what the whole episode tells us about the history of archaeology - and, indeed, human nature...
There are many fascinating stories here, and the most fascinating are the human dramas that accompany the story of the fossils. And eventually the author does deliver some important insights into the story of human evolution revealed by the fossils themselves - such as - chimpanzees are not our ancestors, but an evolutionary cul-de-sac; and our ancestors came down from the trees and walked upright for more than a million years before they wore clothes or made tools... The description of footprints left in the mud by these ancestors, preserved for millions of years, reveals details such as that a family group walked unhurried across the plain, with
Abstract
The study of human evolution is filled with exciting discoveries, contentious disputes, and immense promise. Johannes Krause reviews John Reader's book on the history of paleoanthropology.
Humans are naturally fascinated by questions concerning our own origin, not just where we come from but what made us the way we are. In almost all cultures and religions one finds some form of creation myth explaining how their tribe or people came into existence, ranging from the Mayan god Heart-of-Sky that after several failed attempts finally made the true men from maize to the biblical god that created man from wet clay and women from Adam's rib. Yet it wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that the scientific debate about the origin of our species took off, sparked by a single short hint in On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin that challenged the broadly accepted view of the time that humans were created by a divine entity. Darwin's work implied that humans are not an exception to the processes that drive evolution, such as natural selection, but rather that we evolved from primate ancestors over millions of years, leaving behind a number of extinct ancestral forms.
Reader J (2011) Missing Links: In Search of Human Origins.
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In 1856, three years before Darwin published his book, the first evidence for such ancestral human forms was brought forward, with the discovery of a human fossil in the Neander Valley in Germany by quarry workers. Hand in hand with Darwin's book, the Neandertal fossil started a heated debate about the evolution of our species that continued over several decades before more evidence in the form of human fossils was discovered.
By now, more than 1,000 human fossils have been found spanning the last 7 million years of our evolution. They give scientists the chance to reconstruct the ancestral stages of our lineage and to define various important changes in our morphology during the course of our evoluti Missing Links: In Search of Human Origins - Hardcover
Review
"the best available book on the history of paleoanthropology." --Tim White, The Browser
"The cast of ancient superstars in palaeoanthropologist John Reader's book has grown significantly in the 30 years since the first edition. Neanderthal Man, Lucy and other early hominin fossils are joined by finds from Homo floresiensis to Ardipithecus in a stunningly illustrated update. Powered by enthusiasm and peppered with controversy, the search for human origins is laid out clearly and succinctly." --Nature
"This is the second edition of a classic, almost totally new, updated, with a set of spectacular new illustrations of fossils and field workers and digs -- the whole array enough to make you wish you had spent your life as a physical anthropologist -- truly one of the most exciting intellectual adventures imaginable...The book is immensely readable, a fabulous journey for any reader...Get hold of this book and read it." --Dan Agin, Huffington Post
"This is a revised, updated version of one of the most popular general surveys of human evolution by a science writer whose photographs of fossils, sites, and scientists have become iconic in the field...Highly recommended." --Choice
"the best available book on the history of paleoanthropology." --Tim White, The Browser
"The cast of ancient superstars in palaeoanthropologist John Reader's book has grown significantly in the 30 years since the first edition. Neanderthal Man, Lucy and other early hominin fossils are joined by finds from Homo floresiensisto Ardipithecusin a stunningly illustrated update. Powered by enthusiasm and peppered with controversy, the search for human origins is laid out clearly and succinctly." --Nature
"This is the second edition of a classic, almost totally new, updated, with a set of spectacular new illustrations of fossils and field workers and digs -- the whole array enough to make you wish you had spent your life as